


swept up in your hurricane

by jugandbettsdetectiveagency



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Oh no there's only one bed!, Snowed In, To the library no less, Valentine's Day Fluff, Your clothes are wet here wear something of mine, aboard this trope train we have:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22725103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugandbettsdetectiveagency/pseuds/jugandbettsdetectiveagency
Summary: They’ve drifted closer, and maybe it’s the familiar sight of that worn grey beanie sitting atop his head like it always has done, but she can’t help herself from closing the gap completely by wrapping her arms around his shoulders and murmuring “It’s really good to see you, Juggie,” into his neck.Hesitantly his arms come up to wrap around her, and he replies in a choked kind of voice. “Yeah, you too, Betts.” She hides her smile against his shoulder—no one but him ever calls her that.“But you do realise we’re trapped in the library, right?”A Valentine’s fic.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 51
Kudos: 250
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	swept up in your hurricane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartunsettledsoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/gifts).



> time to board the annual valentine's trope train!
> 
> title from about love by marina
> 
> (what can I say, LJ & PK forever)

She’s sure time has stopped moving. 

Betty blinks slowly, her eyes aching and heavy as she drags them up to look at the clock on the wall. Her brow wrinkles in frustration—she  _ swears _ it had been nine fifteen the last time she looked too. 

_ Where the hell was her phone? _ She fumbles through the piles of open books and loose sheets of paper until the device falls from beneath her upturned textbook on early twentieth century feminism, landing on the carpeted floor with a dull thud.  _ Great, dead.  _ No wonder she hadn’t been getting interrupted by any of her reminders. 

Betty stretches for the first time in what must be hours, sighing at the satisfying pop her back gives, going some way to ease the tightness building up at the base of her spine. She’s only been back at college for a couple of weeks, but between her inability to shake her Alice Cooper ingrained study habits (reinforced by said mother’s constant reminders over the Christmas break that she had better not be wasting their money by not studying every waking second of the day) and her recent bid for a spot on the college paper, her body is already feeling the full effects of falling back into student life. 

It had been something of a miracle that she managed to bag one of the quiet, cosy, corner back chairs in the library this easily—one thing she  _ will _ be thanking her mother for is her regimented early morning wake up calls, even on weekends. The mad dash for a good spot had barely begun when Betty planted herself, her books, her coffee, and her earbuds on the fifth floor and hunkered down with a steely determination to finish the last of her to do list. 

She still has the conclusion and a hefty amount of editing to do on her last paper, but with drooping eyelids Betty resigns herself to a session ended and begins packing up her stuff. 

It’s only when she stands, legs tingling as they wake up, that she realises something’s amiss. 

The library is quiet. 

Beyond the usual hush that normally befalls the building, there’s always at least  _ some  _ chatter or hurried whispers making its way through the stacks. But now the whistle of the wind outside is unnervingly loud. There’s not even the scrape of chair legs across the floor filling the air. No telltale crinkling of chip packets that have been smuggled past the eagle eyed librarians. Not even the hushed snickering of people watching stupid videos on YouTube when they don’t have it in them to concentrate for a minute longer. 

Betty packs up her bag slowly, ponytail whipping her cheeks as she checks left and right for any sign of life. Her palms are beginning to dampen, pulse quickening at the base of her throat. She’s not panicking. There’s absolutely no reason to believe anything is wrong. It’s late and a holiday. Most people who aren’t her are probably already done with their work and getting ready to enjoy the other, less Alice Cooper approved activities college has to offer. Or, they’re ignoring classwork altogether, too caught up in Valentine’s themed campus bar decorations and the extended Happy Hour drinks that have been advertised on flaming pink and red flyers for the past week on every bulletin board from here to the outskirts of campus. 

Betty definitely would have noticed if there was some kind of apocalypse in the last several hours. She’s not that narrow sighted when she’s focused on her studies. She’s not. 

The storm outside really has picked up since she last looked. Even looking at the speed at which the snow is twisting to the ground outside is making her shiver. Betty tucks her scarf a little tighter around her neck and thinks about the cocoon of blankets she’s going to wrap herself in on the walk to the exit, sucking in a deep breath, ducking her head, and pushing open the door. 

It doesn’t budge. 

Betty stares at it blankly for a beat, righting herself after stumbling on her surprised feet. Tentatively, she tries again, pushing gently at first and then harder when nothing happens. Her whole body weight is leaning against the push bar. She kicks the door for good measure. 

“Calm down, Betty,” she mutters to herself, despite her rising panic. “This is fine, there’s a way out.” The snow hits the glass, mockingly. “And you can shut up,” she tells it. 

Betty squares her shoulders, turning away from the traitorous door and peering across to the reception desk. “Hello?” she calls out tentatively, taking a few steps closer. “Is anyone in here?” Logically, there has to be someone—a janitor or security guard, someone. They couldn’t have just locked up and left without checking everyone is out of the library first. And it wasn’t even closing time yet it was only nine—

The clock above the desk catches her eye. Betty blinks, but the hands don’t change.  _ No. No, no it can’t be.  _ But the fact remains that it’s gone eleven o’clock and the library is definitely closed by now. She just happens to still be inside it. 

Betty allows herself a rarely uttered curse. “Fuck.  _ Fuck _ .” 

The clock on her floor must’ve stopped, and without her phone she’d had no way of checking. A voice that sounds irritatingly like her mother’s chimes in to remind her that she should  _ always wear a watch as a back up, Elizabeth, phones are unreliable you know.  _ Banishing the voice, Betty feels her cheeks heat up in anxious anger. Surely they can’t just shut up the place without checking it’s empty first, that’s just bad practice. Who on Earth is running this place anyway?

“Hello?!” Betty calls again, louder and with a tinge of hysteria colouring the edges now. “Hello, anyone?”

“Hello?” Despite her frantic calls, the response from the top of the staircase still makes her jump. 

Betty spins quickly, heart hammering. Her surprise only intensifies with the sight that greets her. 

“Jughead?”

“Betty?” 

Their voices overlap, simultaneously quiet and echoing in the empty space of the library. 

Betty’s _ so _ surprised it takes a couple seconds for her to remember that standing with your mouth hanging open is not an attractive trait. It takes another second to register that she has never in her life worried about seeming attractive in front of Jughead Jones, and a further few seconds to realise that she is very aware of actually wanting to at this moment. 

“What are you doing here?” A mixture of shock and residual nervous energy makes it come out more accusatory than Betty intended. She winces, rocking on her heels and fiddling with the cuffs of her sweater in lieu of being able to get a do-over. 

Even from this distance she can make out Jughead’s amused, if somewhat taken aback, smile. “Err, I was studying?” It comes out like a question, like he’s asking her permission or something, so Betty nods before waiting for him to continue. “And then I took out my headphones and heard someone shouting. And then I came out here. And then I found you.” 

Betty’s sure this is where she’s supposed to cut in, but her mouth is still having trouble catching up with her brain. “Right. Sure.”

“But what—”

“Is everything—” 

Jughead’s started to make his way down the stairs so they’re on the same level, but he pauses and huffs a short, nervous laugh when they interrupt each other again. Betty finds herself mirroring it, wondering when she became so incompetent around him. The tension slowly starts to seep out of the air as they trade shy grins with each other. “You go,” Jughead says, trudging down the last few steps. 

“I mean, what are you doing here? In this library. At a college you don’t go to. I thought you went somewhere out West?” It’s something of a point of shame in Betty’s life that she let her friendship with Jughead fade into the background towards the end of their highschool years. She hadn’t meant it to—it was just that between an ever mounting pile of extracurriculars for college applications, trying to get her sister to stay on a phone call long enough for Betty to ask what the hell was going on with her lately, and Jughead transferring to Southside High for their senior year, she’d let a few things fall to the wayside. One of those things being their friendship. 

Betty’s not sure whether it’s the simple confirmation that there is, in fact, another soul left on the planet alongside her, inside this library, or whether it’s the fact that Jughead is that person specifically, but she’s already feeling ten times calmer than a few minutes ago. Now that she thinks about it, Jughead had always had a knack for catching her in that moment just before she spun off the rails amid whatever calamity Betty was facing that week, and setting her gently back on the rails. Whether they were six and it was assuring her that even if her mom was mad she’d completely ruined her new white summer dress by challenging their best friend Archie Andrews and him to the obstacle course they’d set up in the Andrews’ back yard, she probably wouldn’t be disowned, or they were sixteen and he was assuring her that just because she hadn’t made the cheer team didn’t mean her value was any less—Jughead was good to have around. 

She’s only just realising how much she really missed him last year. 

And now here he was, standing in front of her, stuck in a college library, in the middle of a snow storm. 

“Yeah, I did. But… it wasn’t really a good fit. Turns out you can take the East Coast out of the boy, etcetera, etcetera,” he finishes wryly, looking down at his scuffed sneakers. Betty has a feeling there’s something more there but she doesn’t push, still feeling a little off-footed by the whole situation. Jughead continues, “So I transferred here. To the same college you go to, apparently.” The smile is back, lopsided enough to border on a smirk, and Betty finds a flush spreading across her chest and up her neck.

“Oh,” she says, her voice coming out quieter than she expected, almost lost in the gust of wind that whistles outside.

They’ve drifted closer, and maybe it’s the familiar sight of that worn grey beanie sitting atop his head like it always has done, but she can’t help herself from closing the gap completely by wrapping her arms around his shoulders and murmuring “It’s really good to see you, Juggie,” into his neck. 

Hesitantly his arms come up to wrap around her, and he replies in a choked kind of voice. “Yeah, you too, Betts.” She hides her smile against his shoulder—no one but him ever calls her that.  _ He smells really good _ .  _ Did he always smell this good? _

“But you do realise we’re trapped in the library, right?” she says when they’ve slowly stepped apart. 

Jughead’s brow furrows in several different variations before settling on wary. “Excuse me?” 

“The library closes at ten-thirty, and no one thought to tell us that maybe we weren’t supposed to be inside still when they locked up.” A smile dances at the corner of her lips. Honestly, it all seems pretty amusing now that she’s not the only one stuck. 

“Fuck,” he breathes, scratching at the back of his head, eyes flicking over to the door behind her and back again. 

“My sentiments exactly.” Jughead shoots her an unamused look that is full of too much amusement to land right. “My phone died so I didn’t realise the time, do you have yours?” 

Strangely, Jughead blushes. “Ah, no. Left it in my dorm. Sorry,” he shrugs, rolling his lower lip through his teeth—a movement Betty follows with rapt attention. “The library on my old campus was twenty four hour,” he mutters as an aside, glancing at their abandoned surroundings.

“Not your fault. Although it is hardly sensible to go roaming about campus without means of communication, Jug,” she chastises before heading over to the desk. 

He follows her with a snort. “Still the mom friend, then,” he ribs. 

Betty shoots a withering look over her shoulder. “You were thankful I was the mom friend that time we went to Sweetwater River and Archie threw you into the water with your shorts on.” Betty giggles at the flustered look that sweeps across his features, reaching blindly for the landline on the reception desk just so she can make sure her teasing gaze remains on Jughead. 

“Ah, yes. So thankful that you made me wear your spare picnic blanket as a skirt the whole afternoon, including for our trip to Pop’s afterwards.”

“Hey, I tried to dry your pants on the engine of my car first!” 

“You singed the ass off them!” 

“Not all ideas are golden,” Betty says nonchalantly as she holds the receiver to her ear. Her grin falters when it comes away dead. “Lines must be down.” Her lips are twisting with worry again. 

“Hey, it’s okay we’ll figure something out,” Jughead says quickly. His hand lands on her shoulder, kneading gently to sooth away some of the tension. “There’s worse places to be stuck during a snowstorm. We can raid the vending machines and sit in the good chairs. The ones that freshmen never get to use.” He nudges her, ducking a little to meet her eyes. His eyes are really, earnestly blue right now. 

Something flutters in Betty’s chest, different from the anxiety trying to take flight—something light and delicate. “Okay.”

.

.

.

.

“How was your senior year?” Betty asks later, when there’s a pile of opened and a pile of unopened candy wrappers between them. She’s sprawled out on one of the most coveted sofa chairs on the third floor, Jughead mirroring her position opposite, the snacks within easy reaching distance. 

“Typical,” he says around a mouthful of  _ Milky Way _ . “Probably not much different than if I finished out the year at Riverdale High.” 

“Really? Nothing exciting happening across town? No new friends, new hobbies? Did you finish the Great American Novel?” she teases, swiping several  _ Milk Duds _ from the pile between them.

“Okay, one question at a time, Spanish Inquisition.” Betty flushes and presses her lips together. “I don’t know,” Jughead continues after a brief pause, “It was all fine, I guess. I wrote a bit—nothing so big as a finished novel. I tried to start up the school paper but the funds for that kind of thing at Southside didn’t stretch that far; Toni, the girl who worked on it with me, got a girlfriend too and then it was kind of a one man show after that so it dwindled.”

“That sucks, I’m sorry.” Jughead shrugs her off. “The Blue & Gold wasn’t nearly as fun after you transferred, either. It’s not like guys who want to stay late after school to go sleuthing are a dime a dozen. The mystery of the missing chocolate pudding will forever remain unsolved, I’m afraid.”

Jughead lets out a hearty laugh that comes straight from his belly. “That’s not a mystery, Betts. Miss Beazley used to stash it in the back of the refrigerator and take it home with her at the end of the day.” His look turns smug when her mouth drops open in exaggerated shock. “Scouts honour! I saw her with my own two eyes.”

“Betty and Jughead in, The Dastardly Dinner Lady. Who’d’ve known? Actually…” Betty pretends to consider it, “I have absolutely no trouble believing it, that seems exactly like something she would do.”

“She always was stringent with her portions, that’s for sure,” Jughead adds, punctuating his possession of a hearty appetite by tipping back the last of the chips straight into his mouth.

“See? The Blue & Gold was severely lacking for substance in your absence. I don’t know how I ever got by without you.” She’s trying to keep up the jovial, lighthearted tone they’ve adopted since meeting, steadfastly ignoring the wobble of truth in her voice that escapes without her permission. 

“Nah, you didn’t need me,” Jughead says, avoiding her eyes. “You had Archie, and Kevin. And, hey—I heard you even made cheerleader senior year. That’s awesome.” 

“Don’t sound too thrilled,” Betty says, chucking a dud in the general direction of his face. He rallies and catches it in his mouth with a triumphant grin. 

“No, I am. I know how much you wanted it, so I’m glad you got it. Not that I had any doubt Betty Cooper couldn’t accomplish anything she put her mind to.” 

“Thanks, Juggie.” The sincerity behind his words causes her ears to colour. “Wait, who did you hear that from anyway? Did Archie tell you?” Even if the three of them hadn’t hung out together for a while, she can’t assume that meant he and Archie didn’t keep in closer contact. Even if the thought of being left out stings. 

“Uh, no.” Jughead clears his throat. “I, er, didn’t so much hear as… see. Southside had a game against the Bulldogs and I thought I’d come by, seeing as they’re both technically my alma mater. I saw you cheering.” The smile that plays about his lips is so small, almost fond, Betty’s not sure she wants to admit it’s even there. “You looked good—I mean. It suited you.” 

_ He’s cute when he trips over his words. _ Jughead Jones is cute. Betty’s not sure she’s ever thought that before, but it’s true, she realises. He is. The knowledge settles somewhere low in her belly, warm and steady. “Jughead Jones at a football game. Wow, Southside changed you.”

“Har dee har.”

She giggles, giddy on a new feeling she can’t quite pinpoint. “Why didn’t I see you there? You didn’t come over and say hi.”

“Well.... you looked busy, and you were with the team. And Toni just made me go to cover it for the paper anyway. Didn’t want to permanently injure my loner weirdo rep by running into Reggie or Chuck and having them think I actually  _ like  _ school sanctioned sports.” He’s doing that self-deprecating thing Betty never liked on him. 

She sits up, tucking her hands under her thighs. “I would’ve loved to have seen you there, Jug. I seriously did miss you when you were gone. Sure, Arch and Kevin are great, but they didn’t replace you. And I totally could’ve taken Chuck and Reggie if they’d started anything.” 

Jughead huffs. “I’ve no doubt.”

“I should have made more of an effort to keep in touch with you after you moved.” She’s feeling ridiculously weepy all of a sudden. “I’m really sorry I didn’t.”

“What? No, Betty, it’s fine. It’s not—you shouldn’t feel bad. You were busy, and it’s not like I… I could have tried too, okay?” She nods, but still doesn’t try and reply, for fear of something awful like a shuddering breath coming out of her mouth. “We get to be better at it now, right? At college, I mean. We can… whatever, I’m not trying to say you have to—”

Betty rolls her eyes, letting his waffle chase away the lingering sadness. “Of course we can, Juggie. I’m honestly so glad you’re here.” There’s a beat as they exchange goofy grins over empty wrappers. “Hey, we’re out of snacks.” 

“And I thought keeping tabs on the food was my thing. Hang on.” Jughead rifles through his backpack for more change, stilling suddenly. “Err, Betts?”

“Mm?”

“Don’t be mad, but…” Jughead sheepishly lifts his hand, a white wire hanging from between his fingers. “Turns out I left the phone but brought the charger.”

.

.

.

.

“They don’t think they’ll be able to get anyone out here until it slows down out there. They’ve got to clear a path through the snow,” Betty says several minutes later, worrying her lower lip after she’s hung up with campus security and started scrolling through the barrage of notifications pouring into her newly charged phone. 

“Great. It doesn’t look like it’s slowing down out there anytime soon.” Jughead steps back from peering out through the darkened windows. “Maybe it’ll have kept the swarms at bay at least,” he adds drily. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Valentine’s,” he says, gesturing vaguely outside. “I’m sure it would be packed out there with sickeningly in love couples under any other circumstances.”

“Still not the romantic type I see,” Betty laughs, tucking a non-existent hair behind her ear. 

“Studying late in the library on Valentine’s Day didn’t give me away?” he drawls. 

“That makes two of us then.”

“Oh, come on. I’m sure there are plenty of guys out there just desperate to get even a minute with you on such a holiday,” Jughead replies, busying himself by using his forefinger to draw a heart in the frosted glass of the window. She hopes it’s not just her imagination that he sounds kind of bitter. 

Betty lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Yeah, sure. I don’t think so. Guys don’t really tend to see me that way.” The back of her neck heats. She thinks of her roommate, Veronica, and how all eyes tend to drift to her when they walk into a room together. The confidence she emanates is otherworldly.

Jughead mutters, so quietly she almost misses it, “Then those guys are blind.”

“Thanks, Juggie. You always say the right thing,” she whispers back just as shyly. 

“Betty, I—”

“Yeah?”

They’ve drifted closer again, so close that Betty can watch the way the shadows of his eyelashes dance across his faintly freckled cheeks. They move with his eyes, which unmistakably land on her lips before glancing back to his sneakers. “I—” Jughead deflates. “We didn’t try the fire escapes.”

“What?” Betty asks, stunned by the sudden shift in mood. She’d been sure he was about to say something important, maybe even kiss her. Perhaps she’d been imagining the whole thing. This was Jughead she was talking about, for God’s sake. The same Jughead she’d known since kindergarten. Who’d listened to her obsess over their friend Archie until they were thirteen. Who’d never once made a suggestion that he felt something even remotely more than friendship towards here. And now, because of some silly coincidence she’d deemed fate, here she was, making up ridiculous notions. 

“There’s got to be a fire escape around here somewhere, and they can’t lock those. Come on, let’s check.”

It doesn’t take long to locate it in the back corner of the room, through a side door that leads into a stairwell. Jughead pushes on the bar.

“Shit, I think it’s stuck.” He tries again, leaning his full weight against it. It scraps an inch across the floor before lodging again. “It must be the snow, it’s blocking us in.”

Betty draws herself up to full height, dropping her bag and stepping up beside him. “On the count of three,” she says, bracing her legs and getting ready to shove. She reaches out to place her hands on the flat of the door, overshooting, her fingers brushing against his. Jughead pulls back sharply and repositions himself. Betty sets her jaw, steadfastly trying to ignore the tingling in her right hand where their skin touched. 

She’d been perfectly content to be trapped inside this building with Jughead until she realised that maybe he was more desperate to get out than she realised. That staying here with her might just be a nuisance for him. There was probably some smart, edgy, beautiful girl in his eighteenth century lit class that found him funny and attractive and was his equal in his vast knowledge of cinema. Or something. Whatever. Those were the type of girls you looked at in college, not the girl from your hometown you stumbled across during a snowstorm. 

“Three!”

It takes a couple of hard shoves, but eventually they create a gap big enough to squeeze through. “God, it’s freezing out here,” Betty breathes, every muscle tensing against the sharp wind that sweeps in through the door. 

“Kinda a prerequisite for snow, Betts,” Jughead jokes, but his shoulders have risen to his ears and his teeth are already chattering. “Where’s your dorm?” 

She might exaggerate a bit. “All the way on the other side of campus.”

“Mine’s closer. This isn’t going to be pleasant, come on.” He edges round the door, reaching back to grab her hand and pull her alongside him. Her fingers interlock with his and squeeze instinctually, clinging on tightly as they wade their way through the building snowbank in the general direction of the sidewalk. 

Snow seeps into Betty’s shoes and soaks her socks, creeping up the legs of her jeans until her legs start to feel heavy. Flakes are clinging to her eyelashes and matting her hair against her head. Jughead keeps looking back to make sure she’s okay, the tip of his nose and tops of his cheeks adorably pink from the cold. She grabs his elbow when they hit an icy patch and he pulls her closer. Betty’s almost glad for the warmth of the heat emanating from her face, and definitely glad that he won’t be able to tell how furious her blush is in this weather. 

It probably doesn’t take as long as it seems, but finally Jughead steers them towards a building, pulling out his keycard and ushering them inside.

“One of the perks of transferring in late,” Jughead begins as he pushes open the door to his room, “is that you get the single room.” Betty glances around. It’s pretty neat and tidy for a guy’s dorm, the only real mess confined to the pile of books and papers and coffee cups stacked on the desk. There’s a bed pushed against the far wall and a chest of draws opposite, and that’s about it. Something catches her attention on the bulletin board above his desk.

“Hey, I have this picture up in my room, too.” Her own eyes stare back at her, bright and smiling, from the picture. Either side of her are Archie and Jughead, her arms slung round their necks, Jughead’s makeshift picnic skirt prominently featured. 

“It’s a good picture of a good day,” Jughead says, stepping up behind her with a blanket in hand. “Here, your lips are practically blue.” He’s giving her that same look he did in the library, like he’s thinking about kissing her. 

“You’re one to talk,” she replies, taking the offering gratefully. “But I don’t think I’m gonna get anywhere close to warm still wearing these wet clothes.” Her breath stops in her throat and she swallows down a choked noise at the way his expression freezes. “Not… I didn’t mean that to sound…” The floor isn’t doing a quick enough job of swallowing her whole. 

Laughter he can’t hold back anymore softens the tension in her shoulders. “What a line, Cooper.” She laughs with him, tacking on a coy shrug despite the hammering in her chest. “I’ll get you something to change into, it might be a bit big though.” 

“That’s okay. Thanks.”

He hands her some soft pajama pants and a worn shirt, topped with a pair of thick-looking socks. He’s taken his beanie off, the hair underneath messed and fluffy, except for the damp curl that hangs over his forehead. “I’ll, um, go change in the bathroom.”

Betty nods, words evading her, clutching the clothing to her chest as she watches him go. It smells like him, like he did when she hugged him in the library. She tries not to focus on that while she strips down and hangs her stuff over the back of his desk chair, not to focus on the fact that she’s naked in Jughead’s dorm room, that his clothes are touching her skin. Even despite dry clothes it’s not exactly warm in here, and in lieu of anything else to do she crosses to the bed and slips under the covers, her fingers and toes still frozen.

She answers the soft knock on the door, tucking the sheets around her as Jughead enters slowly, like he’s trying not to look at her, to notice where she is or what she’s wearing—at least she hopes. 

“Better?” she asks, running her eyes from the top of his head to his bare feet. He looks soft and undone, like she remembers him from days when her mom would still let her crash his and Archie’s sleepovers. A yawn escapes before he can answer.

“So much. You can sleep here, if you could just toss me a pillow or something.” Jughead holds out an expectant hand, which she just stares at blankly. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jug. You can’t sleep on the floor, you’ll freeze. Here.” She pulls in a breath as subtly as she can and lies down, pressing herself closer to the wall. “Plenty of room for two.”

Jughead doesn’t move initially, staring at her for so long that she’s about to get up and shove on her dripping sneakers, snow storm be damned. His brain appears to catch up with the rest of him though, and he coughs, rubbing at the back of his neck with a hand before starting gingerly towards the bed. “Okay. Yeah.”

It’s much tighter than she’d anticipated, and she’s instantly aware of every inch of him as he tucks himself in beside her, hugging the edge of the mattress to give her enough space. Any lingering embarrassment vanishes as soon as the warmth of his body begins to heat the air beneath the blankets, and Betty can’t help but shuffle closer to soak up some of it. Jughead seems to relax after that, leaning over to turn out the light. 

“Night, Betty.”

“Good night, Jug.”

In the moments it takes her eyes to adjust, Betty is aware of just how much the darkness amplifies everything. Their breathing is so much louder now, every hitch and uneven rhythm glaringly obvious. They’re facing each other, and she can’t help but wonder if maybe she should turn over, face the wall, and lie achingly still until light begins to filter in through the thin, college-issue curtains. But she doesn’t. 

“This— This is suspiciously cliche. For Valentine’s Day,” Jughead whispers into the darkness eventually. Betty can feel herself start to smile.

“What is?” she whispers back, their faces inches apart. 

“We’re stuck in my dorm. And… there’s only one bed. Isn’t this how all cheesy movies go?” 

He’s so close the thudding of his heart is unmistakable. She can feel it vibrating through the mattress. Or maybe it’s her own. 

There’s an opening here. His Adam’s apple is bobbing nervously, he’s glancing at her lips again, and everything in Betty’s body is screaming at her to back out. 

But she thinks about how relieved she was to see him in the library, how safe he made her feel. How stupidly cute she thought he was even when they were ankle deep and dripping in snow. And instead she says, “Hey, Juggie?”

“Yeah?”

If it’s cliches they’re going for… “My lips are still cold. Maybe you should warm them up.”

It hangs there, floating between them. She hears him pull in a breath. His hand comes up from beneath the sheets to cup the back of her head and then his lips are finally on hers.

The kiss is little more than a press of their lips, but it’s enough to shift the ground beneath her, tugging at something low in her belly with a little  _ oh.  _ She curls her fists around handfuls of his shirt and brings him even closer, using her lips to open his mouth and draw him deeper. A quiet moan catches at the back of his throat and then his fingers are digging into the base of her lax ponytail, mouth hot and desperate against hers. 

Betty slips her leg between his knees, wrapping herself around him in an effort to experience this moment as completely as she can.  _ This is Jughead _ .  _ You’re making out with  _ **_Jughead_ ** _. _ Her brain keeps up a litany of obvious statements, like it’s trying to process too much all at once, but all she can think in response is,  _ this is Jughead. I’m kissing Jughead. I’m going to keep kissing Jughead. _

Also, Jughead can  _ kiss _ . 

She’s so caught up in it that she’s forgetting to overthink, to be self-conscious, to do anything other than return the kiss in kind, letting her hands wander up to run through his already mussed hair. 

Jughead rolls them until he’s half hovering over her, pressing her to the mattress with his hips. She gasps at the sensation, feeling him hard against her, a new kind of thrill that makes her toes curl. 

“Betty,” he breathes, forehead pressed against hers. “Is this okay?”

She can’t stop herself from grinning, her chest heaving against his. She lifts her knees up to lock around his hips, taking in the look of sheer want in his eyes. She doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes.” Her hips lift against his. She’s dizzy on the sensation, capturing his lips against to muffle the noises she knows are trying to escape her. 

Eventually the heated kiss slows, tailing off into gentle pecks until just the tip of Jughead’s nose is resting against hers. She’s _floating_.

“I really like you, Betty,” Jughead whispers, his eyes closed. “I always have. I want you to know that this isn’t just… It’s not because you’re here. It’s because it’s you.” 

Her cheeks ache. “I really like you, too. Because you’re you.”

She can tell he’s trying to tamp down the gleeful smirk threatening to break free, but it won’t be tamed. “Good.”

“Good,” she echoes. 

He draws her close and she curls against his front, drowsy but too wired to even contemplate sleep just yet. 

Betty thinks he’s fallen asleep when he says, “We should probably let them know we’re not trapped in the library anymore.”

She giggles, burying her nose in the crook of his neck. "When the snow stops."

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> in this house we break the fourth wall on bed sharing


End file.
